The wind whipped the clouds. The temperature rose and fell as the approaching storm mixed the glacial and oceanic air masses like marble cake. We landed the Zodiacs on the wild Stikine River delta. We got our daily exercise trudging through the soft, newly deposited, sand. Canadian sand. The mighty Stikine is one of only three major rivers in North America that originate in Canada and have their deltas in the U.S. The Stikine, like the Taku and the Alsek, carve their channels through the Alaskan panhandle.
As far as our eyes could scan, icebergs littered the estuary. The nearby LeConte Glacier is the parent to these wayward children of ice. These massive, aquamarine, three-hundred year old blocks of ice lay stranded by today’s 21 foot tide. They tower above tidepools inhabited by huge Dungeness crabs, pink and grey polka-dotted anemones and sea urchins – stranger companions would be hard to find.
A rare Caspian Tern tears across the sky, its rasping croak, harsh, like the wind. But we feel not the bite of the air but the might of nature as her richness is everywhere to behold.
As far as our eyes could scan, icebergs littered the estuary. The nearby LeConte Glacier is the parent to these wayward children of ice. These massive, aquamarine, three-hundred year old blocks of ice lay stranded by today’s 21 foot tide. They tower above tidepools inhabited by huge Dungeness crabs, pink and grey polka-dotted anemones and sea urchins – stranger companions would be hard to find.
A rare Caspian Tern tears across the sky, its rasping croak, harsh, like the wind. But we feel not the bite of the air but the might of nature as her richness is everywhere to behold.
